The present disclosure generally relates to method of providing element dossiers that include elements from nonadjacent lifecycle phases.
For a given element or artifact in a given lifecycle phase one can obtain a list of those elements in the same phase that are related. For example, for a given code element, one can retrieve the code it calls, or even the code that calls it (e.g., using IBM's Websphere Studio Application Developer (WSAD) Integrated Development Environment (IDE)). One can also retrieve related elements from adjacent lifecycle phases, e.g., for a given hardware element, like a computer chip, one can obtain the designs upon which it was based, or the product which contain instances of it. However, it is not so easy to answer queries which involve elements of nonadjacent lifecycle phases or obtain a complete description of a given element, which contains data from nonadjacent lifecycle phases, e.g., earlier and/or later. For example, information for a particular piece of code such as, the (earlier) requirements which led to it, or all the (later) bug reports it caused, not only a list of all such earlier and later elements, but also the string of relationships linking them to initial target element, are not readily available or obtainable.